


Scenes from an untold plot twist

by nev_longbottom



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Gen, Motherhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-03
Updated: 2010-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29893875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nev_longbottom/pseuds/nev_longbottom
Summary: Darla doesn't die when she brings Connor into this world. She..unlives.





	Scenes from an untold plot twist

**Author's Note:**

> Rewrite of Angel the Series where Darla doesn't die. Posted to LJ in 2010, cross posted as is.

In the alley, she pushes. Darla pushes with every ounce of vampiric strength in her body and right before she reaches over to do what she was considering - staking herself - she prays....

...and it works.

The baby in completely silent, enough to terrify her into wondering if he didn't make it until Wesley pick him up, does something and he starts screaming. Darla rips the umblical apart with her own hands and lies on her back in a puddle of amniotic fluid when Holtz stands in a silhouette against the end of the alley. Gunn has carry her to the car.

He son keeps screaming. She thinks distantly that it must be from her side of the family. She always had a fantastic lung capacity when she was alive. She can't remember her mother clearly, but she remembers a woman's voice singing the Lord's music.

During the drive she watches Angel holding her son and she waits for the moment where she stops loving him. 

It doesn't come.

***

"We should think of names," Angels says, watching her carefully while she breast feeds Connor. She wants roll her eyes but she knows she would want him to destroy her if she ever hurt a hair on his head.

"I was thinking Connor," continues Angel.

Darla raises her eyebrow. "So now you're Irish? I want him to have my clan name as a surname."

Angel frowns, crossing his arms. "We are not naming my baby after a crazy, mass murdering vampire overlord."

"Hypocrite," Darla hisses. "You were going to name him after yourself, you selfish bastard."

When her breast bears no more drink, Darla lifts up to burp. Angel lumbers towards her awkwardly, but she doubts he knows more about how to burp a baby than she does. Both of them know enough to fill a Hatchgnar demon. "I have it," she snaps. She pats the baby's back awkwardly. "How about Connor Aurelius with whatever you want as a surname so long as it's not Anglican."

She stand up carefully, carrying her son over to the crib in the center of the room. Angel doesn't so much as move out of her shadow, shifting baby blankets around until he's made a suitable nest. Angel smiles awkwardly. "You never did get over that time in Edinburgh."

The name makes her stop. English priests tortured her with hot pokers for being a witch and when he found her, Angelus had laughed and helped them until he tired of it and ate the priests. She loves the memory of him as violent and horrible , but she doesn't want Angelus anywhere near her son. She looks at Angel and for the first time, doesn't see the demon she cared for but the demon she doesn't trust.

"I want to speak to the witch that cursed you," she says and then stops a moment to think. "And William."

"Spike?" 

Angel stares at her like she's grown another head. Of all the vampires to have a miracle with, Darla gets stuck with the idiot. "Yes. Spike. Unless you have other childe named William that I don't know about, in which case, let me clarify. I'm looking for William the Bloody. Self-centered, egotistical, and the only vampire other than Penn with a disturbingly deep ability to love."

Angel doesn't say anything. Instead he turns around and leaves her alone with Connor. Finally.

As soon as he leaves the room, Darla leans over the cribs and starts singing softly. The same nonsense nursery rhymes she sang to Drusilla before William came along. She knows Angel can still hear her with his vampiric hearing but without him in the room she can pretend that he trusts her with their son.

***

"Here, you can't just freeload forever," snaps Cordelia, dropping a pile of manila file folder in front of Darla.

She wrinkles her nose in disgust. "What am I supposed to do with this?" she sneers.

"Alphabatize them and file them. Angel's college fund is getting up a boatload of new clients which means you need to start helping out around here and not just oggleling necks." Cordelia says, grabbing a stack twice as large and letting herself into one of the back offices.

Connor starts crying from his crib and Darla gets up as fast as she can to get to him. By the time she gets back, the Hyperion is completely empty and that fucking stack is still there. She thinks about her options carefully before settling Connor in a baby seat.

"Hey, baby, know what we're gonna do?" Connor gurgles and looks up at her with his dark human eyes. "We're going to file these so you can get big and strong and go to Oxford because I'm not going to let Angelus turn you into a stupid jock at Notre Dame, right baby? We're going to file these and go find Angel's credit card to buy a TV so I don't go crazy. Crazy mommies eat annoying demon hunter, right baby?" 

Connor gurgles softly and starts to drool a little out of the corner of his mouth. Darla thinks it's the only time she's ever found the rupulsive act amusing.

***

Once Darla's made it explicitly clear that every cent of Angel's share from the Nahdrah was going into the bank account in Connor's name, she calls William. She watches Angel and Cordelia feed Connor from a bottle with a careful eye. She won't trust Angel until she speaks to the witch that cursed him. 

"Angel," she hears his growl into the phone. She feels a touch of fondness for him in her cold dead heart, that he sould hate Angel as much as she does. She hears another voice squeak in the background.

"No, I'm just using his phone. Hello, William, I need to speak with you. Is Dru there? Don't put on her on, just tell her I'll call her some other time," she says. She doesn't want to spend twenty minutes talking nonsense.

There's a long heavy silence at the other end. "Darla?" William's voice is uncertain, scared almost. It makes her smile.

"I have a problem that you have some experience with. When was the last time you talked to Angel? "

"Two years. Thanksgiving. He's not Angelus, is he? Hold on a sec, love," she hears a click and then his voice yelling at someone away from the phone. "If you would just hold on a minute, Slayerr, I will bloody well find out."

Oh great. Angel's need to save puppies carries on to the next generation. If Darla finds Dru volunteering at an orphanage, that's it. She's just going to have to slay her lineage. "The slayer?" Darla sneers. "Really, William? Does fucking that whore come with a complimentary soul?"

"Look you crazy bitch, I can kill demons if I want to, so have you? Were you or were you not there during Budaphest."

Darla rolls her eyes. Trust William to throw the past in her face. "This is about Connor. I love him. I'm still a demon, so what's wrong with me?"

"Who?"

Darla spends the next couple hours, carefully explaining the story from beginging to end. Sunnydale. Waking up in Wolfram & Hart. Dying again. Getting pregnant.

"That's vile. Absolutely vile. You should have known better than let that poofter near your snatch." he says. She can hear other things shuffling about. She's almost completely sure he's put her on speakerphone but she's pleased that he's listening. She always liked William better than Penn anyway.

"Well, he's not coming near it again. One miracle baby is all I'm making. You'd like him. Connor always manages to urinate on Angel when he changes Connor's diapers."

"You really love him." William says softly. "You used to laugh at me. Say demons don't really love but we do. You know that now. Almost fitting that you of all demons get stuck as love's bitch." He chuckles.

She doesn't. "Angel and I fight over everything. Names, religion, clothes-"

"Religion," William says incredulously.

Darla shrugs. "He wants to raise Connor as a Catholic. Honestly, at least if we raise him in the Jewish community, we can actually take Connor to Temple."

"You are going to be one of those overbearing mums," William says. "I can feel it. You should bring the tyke for a visit."

"That child is going to the hellmouth over my ashes." She negotiates for his to come to Los Angeles instead. Without Lindsay or Dru, William is the closest thing she has to a friend and the only person she can think of who she would trust around her baby. She doesn't even trust Angel's pets. Especially not the little Texan girl with the shifty eyes.

***

A week before William is supposed to arrive for a visit, Darla finds a stranger in her home.

"Hello," it says cheerfully. "I am the Groosalugg. I have come to be with my true love, the Princess Cordelia."

She looks him over. Strong. Human appearance. Weaponry. 17th century barbarian chic.

If she wasn't holding Connor at the time, she would have snapped her finger. "You. Come with me. We're going to make Angel's kitchen kosher. I'm going to need you to throw out the pigs blood."

"As you wish, Lady of the house," he says, kneeling in reverence. She supposes she'll have to amend her demand to Angel that he stop collecting pets because this one is well trained. She'll just keep him for herself.

***

"You can't keep him, Darla! He's a person," Angel insists. 

Darla can practically smell the insecurity on him. "Oh no," she says. "Because if you consider him a person, you have to consider me a person and like it or not, I have been here, taking care of our son non-stop since I gave birth. I feed him, I bathe him, I rock him. You go out and do your little investigations, sly your demons and just take it for granted that I am trapped in this hotel. Even human parents get babysitters to run errands."

Cordelia jumps into the argument. "She has a point, Angel. You need a babysitter who isn't easily defeated by crazy ninja cults and gets along with the baby. Just look at them."

Darla's pet Groosalugg is standing in a corner of the lobby, rocking Connor gentle while the baby laughs. Connors arms tug at the Groosalugg shirt.

"Can't Lorne do it?" Angel whines. 

Cordelia and Darla both cross their arms and glare.

"Fine," Angel snaps, right before the Hyperion doors open.

"Darla, you evil bitch, you look fantastic.," William says, striding in through the doors. Darla hasn't seen him since Italy in the 1960's. She likes the new look, leather duster, nail polish, and all. He looks like a petulant child who is trying too hard to look tough. It suits him.

"You came early," she laughs and rushes to hug him as Angel's pets reach for the closest weapons.

"You invited him here?" Angel's voice thunders. The sheer rage is enough to make Connor start wailing. Darla frowns at Angel and reaches to receive her baby from Groo. 

"You scared him." Darla bounces Connor softly, humming soothing sounds. 

A little dark eyes human skirts out from behind William looking like an overgrown colt. "Hi, Angel. Is that your baby?"

Angel's brow furrows. He looks like he's dangerously close to having a migraine. "Hi, Dawnie. Does Buffy know you're here?"

She nods. The constipated look gets worse. Dawnie disappears behind the counter in Cordelia's direction. Good riddance.

"Don't tell me you were never going to tell Connor about his big brother, were you?" She carefully angles Connor towards William. Connor scrunches his face and wobbles one chubby little arm towards William's direction.

"Wait a moment." Wesley comes out from his office. He had been waning so quickly, Darla almost cared. "Spike...is your child."

Angel shifts his weight around uncomfortably. "Well, technically."

"This is the greatest news I've ever heard." It's like the weight of the world falls away and Wes dashing back into his office.

William smiles softly at Connor, startling Darla more than the other human's insanity. It's been a long time since she's seen Spike so unguarded. "Lo, baby boy. You must get your looks for your mum." He strokes Connor's cheek with his finger, "Can I hold him?"

"Yes." "No."

Darla hands the baby over to Spike and enjoys the double pleasure of Angel's loathing and the children's mutual sense of wonder at the other. Connor pats his jackets with a confused look as Spikes eyes soften the way he used to look at Dru. "Got to stick around for this one. Make sure you don't grow up all soft and pathetic like your Dad."

Angel's smoothed shriek of rage is vindicating.

***

William stays for a week with his little pet human until something called "Spring Break" concludes and he has to take her back. It's like Europe again, only a little more relaxing because instead of slaying humans, they slay Angel's credit limit. Without hunting, the competitive pressure to show up William is gone and she can enjoy being evil with the last sane member of her family. They do their best to reduce starlets to tears and terrorize sunset boulevard. 

Wesley stops wandering the hotel as if end of days has arrived and spends his time laughing without a fear in the world. With Groosalugg about to help with the baby during the evenings, Darla's free to go out and see the world.

She ends up helping Angel. It disgusts her, doing good, but if she can't kill humans and she doesn't have anyone to enjoy herself with in the city, what else is there other than killing annoying demons? At least it's still killing.

"Slippery slope, missy," William agrees when they have time to catch up.

She's willing to put up with this as long as there's Connor.

***

She only believes it's happening because she has to watch it. She has to watch Holtz jump into the portal with her baby boy, with Connor and she throws herself at the portal after them but she's too late, there's nothing but empty air.

***

She consults every magic user she can find to try to get to Quortoth. It doesn't work.

***

She does her best to force them. Doesn't work.

***

Wolfram & Hart refuse to return her calls.

***

She's half way through kidnapping Willow Rosenburg before William convinces her the witch is awful at interdimensional travel and the Slayer wouldn't be so understanding. She tries saying please instead but the closest they can get to Quortoth is the world without shrimp.

***

Halfreck won't return her calls. She knew she'd regret destroying that Hungarian orphanage.

***

She only goes back to the hotel to steal more money off of Angel but she gets roped into helping them get rid of the parasites. She stops moving once they've save the shifty eyed Texan girl when she smells Connor.

She smells him and sees a boy who looks painfully like her sister Annabeth and like the dewy eyed boy she watched Angel kill after she turned him.

"Connor," she says softly, as if anything above a whisper will make her son disappear.

"Hello, Mother. Father."

***

The difference between her and Angel is she doesn't dodge. Connor fires stakes at them both. The stakes pierce in two places, her collar bone and her lung. Gunn pulls them out and has to pull her out of the line of fire. She feels like her heart is breaking. 

Still, injured and bleeding, she throws herself between Angel and Connor, hitting Angel hard enough to throw him into a pillar. As soon as Connor runs for the door, Darla goes after him.

Her heart is breaking, but she still loves him. She will break every bone in his body if that is what it takes to beat sense into him, to figure out what Holtz has done to her beautiful baby boy. She watches everything. 

Sunny, Tyke, the police, Angel. She even manages to follow him to Holtz before she overhears them speaking. That's when the tracking stops.

She goes back to the Hyperion, ignoring all the human's questions and turning instead to Angel, curling into his body and crying like she hasn't been able to do in over a year.

"He took my son," she cries. She spends herself sick with exhaustion and wakes up the next day with a plan.

***

"That's a horrible plan," Gunn says, staring at her like she's insane.

Whatever, at least Darla isn't stuck in a painfully bad love triangle. Sometimes she just wants to yell at them to have a threesome and then kill them and lock their undead bodies in a room together so when the starvation hits they'll rip each other to shreds. Or, you know, fire them.

"What's wrong with it? Deprogrammers are trained in exactly this. Me and Angel pick up Connor, we rough him up a little for his own good, take him to a deprogrammer and we get our Connor back." Darla says, she passes around a couple sample handouts she's received from deprogramming companies to show the others.

"You do realize if you do this, Connor will revert back for a six month old baby." Wesley says.

Darla doesn't see the problem in this. "I don't see the problem," she says.

Cordelia arches an eyebrow, "That's creepy."

"Better than having a teenage boy known as the Destroyer running around," mutters Fred. "I say we do it."

"I am not roughing up my son for his own good," insists Angel. Darla rolls her eyes. She's always rolling her eyes around him.

***

Darla doesn't go with Angel to the bar once Cordelia's vision hits. She waits at the Hyperion in case Connor comes back. 

She's furious when they come back with Connor hours later and completely forget to call her and let her know that Connor's fine. She's on him seconds after they make it through the main doors, checking for any injury.

Connor stands completely still during her fussing, as if he has no idea how to possibly react. She fusses over his clothes and his hair, carefully running her fingers through his unruly snags. 

Darla refuses to hear of him going back to his hotel. She drags him to the opposite end of the house and settles him in the guest room Lorne often used before he moved out. The comforter is a bit...brighter than she's like, but it's something.

She moves him like she used to move Drusilla, like a doll because she's not sure how to fit aound him. All the children Angel ever had were adults before he killed them. Connor is...

Connor isn't her tiny boy. She feels a phantom ache in her breasts from when they weighed with milk with no one to feed. She takes a comb and runs in through her hair.

"C-," she cuts herself off before she makes the mistake of calling him Connor. She can't bear to call him Stephen. "What do you want?" she asks carefully.

He shifted his weight on the bed and she is reminded of the uncertainty he treats her with. over a decade in a hell dimension with no one but demons and a grown Gentile. It's no wonder he doesn't know how to behave around a woman, let alone a mother.

"I don't know." She sees his eye muscles twitch. It's almost enough to make her hand stop combing his hair, but she keeps moving. She's surprised to see how much Connor lies like his father.

"Let's pretend you don't lie like your father. Do you know what kind of a career you would like?" she asks gently.

"This world is very different from Quortoth," he says softly. This time she watches his eyes and does not see any kind of lie. She stops untagling his hair long enough to embrace him in a hug. It's awkward. He tenses immediately, like he hasn't any idea how to relax.

"I'd like you to be tested by a tutor so we can enroll you in school. In this century, you need a proper education to get by. Culture lessons with Cordelia are probably a good idea "Darla pauses to unravel a vicious snare in his hair with her fingers. His hair is course, like Angels. "We need to go shopping to pick you up some appripriate clothes for school as well as a yamulke for Temple. No son of mine is going to be a Papist." She mutters the last sentence bitterly under his breath.

Connor stiffens. Darla hastily amends her words. "I wanted to raise you in the Jewish tradition of my human life. Angel wanted you to be Anglican. I suppose Holtz was a compromise neither of us envisioned." She forces her face into a tight smile, to keep her demon face from coming out. 

Connor looks away hastily. "He taught me the word of the Lord." 

Darla stops pretending she still has anything to comb out and puts her arms around him again. Loosely this time. She doesn't give a damn about God. She doesn't actually care what petty stupid lies humans make to explain demons. All she wanted was her son to have the right sort of morals as he grew and to become something much, much better than her.

"In that case, a Montessori private school would probably be best." Darla stops and thinks for a moment. "With Charm school in the afternoon to keep you from being a complete barbarian."

***

"Where's Connor?" Angel's brow furrows with worry. Darla considers starting a dart game where she awards different points for different furrows but it sounds too easy.

She's sitting behind her desk. Technically, it had been Fred's but it wasn't as if that girl didn't do most of her writing on walls or breakfast burrito wrappers. "I asked Willow to take him to meet the principle of one of the private schools we were looking at."

Angel leans against the edge of her desk, giving her an odd look. "We didn't talk about private schools."

"No. Willow and I," Darla says, smirking politely. "She's the only human we know who can answer all of the Rabbi's questions."

Gunn does an abrupt 180 to walk back to the desk. 'Hold up a second," He looks at both of them. "You down with God?" 

Darla looks at him like the miserable excuse for a meal he is, "No. Don't be ridiculous. I want to raise my son with good Jewish values. Angel here wants him to be Catholic." She spits the word Catholic like a curse.

Gunn studies both of them carefully, "Neither of you find it as little crazy to raise your son in a religion that condemns your existence?"

"Well," Angel says uncomfortably. "No parenting style is perfect."

***

Connor's room looks different after she's filled it with his private school things, knick knacks William recommended, and all sorts of toys the son of two vampires might enjoy. She's particularly fond of the mace she found in East LA.

She doesn't trust the comradery he's building with Angel, but she does trust the strange looks he gives her in private, like a wounded animal eyeing another predator. She insists of combing his hair herself every evening and every morning. She tucks him in and pretend she doesn't hear it when he climbs out of bed to sleep underneath it. Instead she makes sure to vacuum the carpet underneath while they patrol.

During Willow's meeting with the school, Connor placed in all strange places around the charts. He surpassed the Physical Education requirements and had little trouble with written word, but his science and math skills were appalling. 

"We're just lucky they believed the story we fed them about raising him in Africa. The faster we can get him a fake passport, the better." Darla stands over Angels desk, hovering until he agrees to help speed up the process. Never let it be said Darla doesn't try her hardest for her family.

***

The passport arrives the same night Connor comes back from the sea side without Angel. He actually falters for a moment in the lobby, before his voice tries to cut in smooth, "Dad said he was going out to meet Cordelia, I've been out p-"

"Don't lie to your mother." Darla can smell Angel, the ocean side, the gasoline tinged with brine from boat motors. She is a mother first and a vampire second. Both of these part of her can agree with out thing. "I never liked Angel anyway. Come on, I made dinner again."

Connor doesn't move, but he doesn't run either. "You're a soulless demon. A bitch demon from hell animating the body of a whore. Why are you- Why are you-" 

Darla doesn't know what he's trying to say. She doesn't particularly care. She finds herself stepping forward to embrace him. It takes a moment, but his arms come tight around her, hugging as hard as any true vampire would. She can hear his heart beating strong enough for both of them. "The difference between me and him is that I live to love you, baby boy. Angel loves you to redeem himself. I'll always be proud of you, Connor."

They both hold each other. It's somewhere between comfort and predators resting. She's never been prouder of her son than in this moment he's moved his father. Mostly, mostly because for all the things she can breathe on his, she does not smell ash.

***

He goes to summer school with Fred tutoring him in mathematics, Gunn teaching him chemistry and basic sciences, and Wesley (the most devastated of all of them by Cordelia and Angel's disappearance) teaching his Hebrew. The lessons are the reason she doesn't kill them all in his sleep or encourage Wes to kill himself for her amusement.

William doesn't visit or return her calls. It worries her more than anything until she receives a babbling messege from a demon in South Africa telling Darla it found William wandering mad in the desert. 

Connor seems centered. He's doing well in school, wearing a yarmulke voluntarily outside of school, and even mentions the names of people who aren't demons of informants every now and then. Darla's a little suspicious of him constant contact with Holtz' old people, but she supposes it can't be helped.

Still, when the phone call comes about William, she hops on the first plane there to fetch him. He's a wreck of a demon. There's something off about him that's just familiar and she doesn't figure it out until they've boarded the plane. She's seen this madness after Angelus killed the gypsy girl. The plane however, is too populated for her to do more than scream inside her head and rip the magazines to shred because someone has taken the demon she dearly loved and replaced it with the madness of a stranger.

Sunnydale is as far as she can take him. Connor's too delicate to be alone for much longer than a week and goodness knows how much work would be unraveled by bringing a deranged vampires under their roof.

She leaves him with Clem. 

Her son has to come first.

***

She comes home to her son tied down to a chair and being tortured. "What have you done to him," she shrieks, throwing the humans into walls. She breaks the Texan's stun gun with her hands, before rushing to untie him.

She's worried about his injuries. Connor healed as quickly as a vampire, but infections were her biggest fear. She overlooks the brief expression of disgust when she touches him. She knows Holtz still has a strong hold over her boy. She's shocked however, when she glances back towards the doorway to see Angel standing.

"Wait, Darla, I need to talk to my son." 

She doesn't like the look of it. She rips through the last of Connors restraints and tries to argue against leaving Angel alone in the room with him. The last thing she remembers is Angels arm grabbing her by the throat and slamming her into a wall before she has a chance to fight back.

***

She wakes up in chains, alone, in the basement.

Needless to say, she is pissed.

***

It takes her a while to find out Angel kicked out Connor from the hotel before deciding Darla was too dangerous to leave running to loose but too good to stake. "I'm going to kill that Texan girl when I get out of here." 

Angel looks upwards with a self-suffering expression. "Thank you Angel for letting me live," he mutters bitterly."

It takes her a few hours to break out. She has to wait until she's sure Angel's out of hearing range and then break or dislocate every bone she need to pull her hands through the irons.

The pain is focusing enough for her to pack a bag of the essentials. A few thousand in petty cash, Connors clothes, and a bottle of holy water. She waits until her hands have healed and she goes straight to Justine.

It takes a bit of convincing to make it clear that she's not a random vampire but Connor's mother. Which, doesn't help her case much, but it does get her enough information to find him.

***

The first thing she does when she sees him is smile gently and beckon him the way she did every morning she brushed his hair. She didn't pack the comb, but she runs her fingers through his hair slowly.

"I brought your school clothes," she says softly. Connor looks at her the way Darla used to look at Dru. 

Darla keeps her fingers moving at a steady speed through his hair. "I won't tell you that you shouldn't kill demons - we both know you love it. I will tell you that it doesn't need to be everything. Holtz," he tenses under her hand but she continues. "Holtz was a very educated, fine man. Don't you want the same education for yourself?"

It's the right thing to say. Without pulling away from her, Connor takes the duffle bag. He even tilts his head up towards her fingers and leans in. He's too proud to reach for an embrace, Darla recognizes the signs, but she can give him this.

She leaves before the early hours. She knows those are his favorite hours to patrol with the humans. She can't protect him by living in his nest of humans, she'll get staked in seconds. The best she can do is hide out in her own small motel; call every day to make sure he goes to classes in the morning and come to visit him with medicinal supplies when he does not.

She knows he has a pair of humans watching her to make sure she doesn't feed on humans. This is the only thing keeping her from killing out of boredom. She's so close to getting her son to love her back and she would rather let an irritating shop girl live than risk it for a warm meal.

She drinks her lamb and otter's blood in a shabby hotel room and wonders if it's worth the Hellmouth madness to see William. She looks at the wreckage of her life and steals the first car she can find, making sure she drives slow enough to keep the humans on her tail the entire way.

***

It take Darla a lot of searching before she can trak the trail on habitations. A crypt. A basement. An abandoned church. A condominium apartment.

The boy opening the door is completely unfamiliar. Thankfully, the confused looking demon at his side is a sight for sore eyes.

"William," she says with the barest hint of warmness. She doesn't trust what a soul could have done to what is the lastof her family.

His entirely body warms to her, stepping out from the shadow of the human boy to wrap around her completely. "Darla, Darla, Darla," he repeats. She gives the human boy a disturbed look that he returns.

"Our Spike comes with extra crazy lately," the corner of the human's mouth twitches. "Nice to meet you, Daria. I'm Xander." 

"Darla," She corrects him, she moves her hand as if to shake but she can hardly get a limb out from under Spike's wrap. "Soul's tend to do that," she mutters bitterly.

Xander's eyebrows fly up. "Okay, you're that Darla. I'm just going to..." He slams the door shut.

She really hates humans sometimes.

***

"I don't see what you see in her," Darla says, watching Buffy accross the dance floor of the Bronze. She hates how... fifteenth century Buffy makes her feel, reminding her of the bitter cattiness existing between the other New England prostitutes. 

William's eyes watch her dance. It's enough to make Darla want to hit him over the head with a bottle. 

He smiles at her. The Slayer had arrived sometime shortly after Xander had slammed the door in her face to make sure Darla was in fact not here for a killing spree. William tried convincing the Slayer that Darla was completely safe but fact of the matter meant that the Slayer would never, ever trust a evil vampires. Especially when Darla was there insisting that she was not any way on earth she would ever, ever help their ridiculous organization.

"That ones a real diamond in the rough. Bit like you." His lips quirk into a smile. 

It's troubling the way this new version of William is slow to express joy and had lost his trademark smirk entirely, replacing it with a timid poets' grin that she hasn't seen in centuries.

"Your own soul has the same shine. Like a soft velvet cover over spanish steel." The dream like qualities of his voice - the painful resemblence to Drusilla sends shivers down her spine.

"I do not have a soul," she stammers. She hates how uncertain it sounds. How it almost feels like a lie in her own ears.

William laughs, low and dark. "Did you really think the Powers That Be would leave your stone unturned? It takes humanity to make life, Darla. Connor wasn't exactly made from scratch. William's soul wouldn't have settled in me if there wasn't something there for him to anchor to."

Darla shakes hard enough to stumble when she back away from him. William's smile is changing to predatory again and she doesn't like the way it's pointed at her. "It's not much of a soul, but it's very, very real. He bares his blunt human teeth at her. It's enough to send her running. 

***

A mile out of Sunnydale she considers crushing the cell phone Angel gave her and then stops to reconsider. It's the only way Connor has to reach her. Instead she settles for deleting William's phone number from the cell. She does not have a soul. It isn't possible.

***

She comes home to her son covered in Cordelia's scent. "Her?" she says despairingly. Connor has the sense to look vaguely ashamed. "She's not even Jewish," Darla adds.

Cordelia is sleeping on the bed as she speaks. Soft snoring noises rift out from under the coverlet. 

"Mother, please," Connor says. Darla's pleased to see he only stumbles over the word slightly. "She remembers nothing of before." He glances down at the bed. "She was kind to me."

Darla beckons. Connor shuffles forward close enough for her to run her fingers through his hair. She can't stay long, the sun is rising. Still, she spares the time to stay long enough.


End file.
